Case Law Details
Kanishka Matta Vs Union of India (Madhya Pradesh High Court)
The petitioner’s contention is that the word “money” is not included in Section 67(2) of the CGST Act, 2017 and therefore, once the “money” is not included under Section 67(2) of the CGST Act, 2017 the Investigating Agency / Department is not competent to seize the same.
This Court has carefully gone through Section 67 of the CGST Act, 2017 and the expression used in sub-section (2) of Section 67 is “confiscation of any documents or books or things, which in proper officer’s opinion shall be useful for or relevant to any proceedings under this Act, are secreted in any place”. Thereafter, sub-section (2) has two provisos and first proviso relates to goods and the second proviso refers to documents or books or things so seized shall be retained.
The core issue before this Court is that whether expression “things” covers within its meaning the cash or not. In the considered opinion of this Court, the CGST Act, 2017 has to be seen as a whole and the definition clauses are the keys to unlock the intent and purpose of the various sections and expressions used therein, where the said provisions are put to implementation. Section 2(17) “business” and Section 2(31) defines “consideration”. In the considered opinion of this Court a conjoint reading of Section 2(17), 2(31), 2(75) and 67(2) makes it clear that money can also be seized by authorized officer.
The word “things” appears in Section 67(2) of the CGST Act, 2017 is to be given wide meaning and as per Black’s Law Dictionary, 10th Edition, any subject matter of ownership within the spear of proprietary or valuable right, would come under the definition of “ thing” (page No.1707). Similarly, Wharton’s Law Lexicon at page No.1869 and 1870, the word “thing” has been defined and it includes “money”. It is a cardinal principle of interpretation of statute that unreasonable and inconvenient results are to be avoided, artificially and anomaly to be avoided and most importantly a statute is to be given interpretation which suppresses the mischief and advances the remedy (Interpretation of statute by Maxwel , 12th Edition, page No.199 to 205). The same preposition of law is propounded in Craies on Statute Law, 7th Edition, page No.94).
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